BERKELEY — The City Council on Tuesday ushered six applicants into the final round for selection to become the city’s fourth authorized cannabis dispensary.

In doing so, the council altered the process by allowing all six current applications deemed complete to be considered; the limit for the final round previously had been set at five.

The council also gave the go-ahead for developing a comprehensive plan to fund the undergrounding of utility wires for all streets in Berkeley, invoking the hazards of live wires during earthquakes, wildfires and other disasters while noting that such a plan has been a matter of discussion for years.

The council expressed support for a set of alternatives, put forth by an Alameda County Behavioral Health Services Stakeholder’s Group, for increased mental health services for people who voluntarily enter services. But in doing so, the council added that the recommendations do not go far enough, in that they do not provide for intervention on behalf of people whose condition is so disabling that they cannot and will not enter services voluntarily.

The council postponed to Nov. 3 a discussion of proposed amendments to the city’s accessory dwelling, or second-unit, ordinance that would include a waiver of certain parking requirements near mass transit.

Also on Tuesday, the council approved a two-year labor agreement with the Berkeley Fire Fighters Association calling for an immediate 2 percent pay increase, to be followed by another 2 percent raise in June 2016 and another half-percent in January 2017. And it confirmed the appointments of Henry Oyekanmi as finance director and Savita Chaudhary as director of information technology. Oyekanmi had been acting finance director. Chaudhary has been working for Vacaville as information technology division manager.

Tom Lochner covers Berkeley and occasionally West Contra Costa County for the Bay Area News Group. Tom grew up in Western Europe. He was a translator for a patent law firm and an international bank in Manhattan, then a housing manager in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, before moving to California to become a journalist.

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